Yandex Has Learned to Detect Viruses for Hidden Mining

The company Yandex has equipped its browser with a protection against viruses, forcing users’ computers to mine cryptocurrency for the benefit of intruders.The principle of operation is quite simple. The browser analyzes the CPU load while the user is on a certain site. In case a user visits the site and the CPU load rises, the system signals a possible malicious script. If the check confirms the presence of such a script, then the browser blocks it, while the site remains available with the only difference that the script can no longer run the mining process on the user’s computer.An expert on antiviruses working at Kaspersky Lab Alexei Malanov said that although the detection of such scripts through the analysis of the CPU load is a good idea, this method has its drawbacks.

“First, mining scripts can limit downloading to cause less suspicion. Secondly, there are likely false positives on sites that use a high load for legal purposes … If a computer is old, even the playback of streaming video can give a false signal”, Malanov said.

But for example, Sergey Kuznetsov, who is the head of the department of technical support of products and services of Eset Russia believes that the best protection against illegal mining is advertising blockers, which Microsoft also agrees with.

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As it has been reported by the Marketwatch, Erik Finman, a teenager who became a millionaire back in the times when Bitcoin cost 20 thousand dollars, gave a very negative outlook for BTC in the future.

“Bitcoin is dead, it’s too fragmented, there’s tons of infighting I just don’t think it will last. It may have a bull market or two left in it, but long-term, its dead,” said Finman.

As for Litecoin, here the teenager is sure that this coin “has been dead for a while”. He also mentioned those coins that, in his opinion, still have a chance at the market, such as Ethereum, ZCash and, surprisingly, Bitcoin Cash.

Although Eric is still very young and not that experienced, the fact that he owned 4 million dollars in BTC in 2011 make his predictions quite reasonable.

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Relatively new blockchain technology is developing quite actively in recent years, which inevitably leads to increase of jobs number in this industry. Considering that, the infrastructure is still not very developed well in this area, it can be assumed that the trend of increased demand for qualified personnel will still remain for many years. In this article we will talk about blockchain specialists, find out who employers are looking for, what average salaries are offered, and in the end we will talk about where to learn this craft.

1. Briefly about blockchain technology

Let us briefly remind what blockchain is, and why many people predict a great future for it? So, in simple words, blockchain is an open (that is, public) registry of data, which is stored in separate blocks and has a chain structure. Each subsequent block stores the information about the previous one. For example, let`s take a usual book, which is divided into separate pages, so after 45, there 46, 47 should go, etc. Attempts to change or delete a block, which has already been entered into blockchain, will immediately be noticed by the network.

The increased security of Blockchain is backed up by data storage. The fact is, that the entire data registry has hundreds of thousands copies (depends on number of miners in network), which are located throughout the world.

2. What experts are now in demand in the industry and how much do they earn?

When it comes to blockchain specialists, most people imagine a highly qualified programmer who knows all the programming languages, Morse code, and the depths of cryptography. But in reality, to be a fairly successful developer, you need to know:

basics of programming;

C ++ language ideally, but this is optional, Python, Java, Golang, etc. will also work.

Having these knowledge and at least minimal experience in programming, one can become a blockchain developer without any particular problems. The wage, in this case, will directly depend on experience, depth of knowledge and a particular company. In Europe and the United States experienced developers can get to $175 thousand per year. But it’s not necessary to be a programmer to work in the blockchain industry. This is not a complete list of vacancies, this young market needs:

Investment Director. It is a key position in any crypto startup, because its main task is to search and work with potential investors. This is a quite difficult job, because now many people are still wary of cryptocurrencies and blockchain as a whole, and they are not in a hurry to invest their savings. The salary depends on the amount of raised funds, from which a certain percentage is given to an investment director.

Marketer, PR manager. As Thomas Macaulay said: “Nothing Except The Mint Can Make Money Without Advertising”. This profession is very relevant absolutely in any field and the blockchain industry is no exception. To succeed in this position, the specialist is obliged to speak several foreign languages, to have experience in international sales. Salaries of the specialists depend on the scope of a project, as well as a marketing record of a marketer.

Bounty manager. The rapid development of the ICO market has led to emergence of brand new professions. This position involves conduction of all processes, interaction and verification of performers for tasks implementation. Salary of these specialists can hardly be called high, it rarely exceeds $1,000.

Crypto analyst. This profession implies the deep knowledges of the cryptocurrency market. An analyst should be able to carry out a fundamental analysis of any coin, and on the basis of this data make his or her own predictions of investments growth. This is one of the most promising areas in the blockchain industry, since the analyst’s wages have no limit. Large investors will be happy to pay a certain percentage of commission to a such specialist for a good tip.

Lawyer. There is literally “a long row to hoe” in the blockchain field for these professionals. The fact is that legislative base here is still at a very early stage of its development and there is still a lot of work to be done in this direction.

3. Where to study for a blockchain specialist?

Higher-education institutions are already training specialists in this direction. A number of leading universities offer introductory courses into blockchain, cryptocurrency, etc.

To master any of the above mentioned professions of the future, you can take online courses on the Internet, the number of which is sufficient now. But when choosing a training program you should be extremely careful and before entrusting your money and time to some “blockchain guru”, read the information about him carefully.

4. Conclusion

The crypto industry differs with a rather rapid pace of development. To work in this area, you must always keep “your eyes open” and be able to adapt quickly to a new circumstances. Every year new professions appear, which offer new opportunities and high wages.

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According to the report of South China Morning Post, Hong Kong businessman was threatened with blowing off the building where his company is unless he sends $20 000 in Bitcoin. The scheme was the same as we reported earlier:

The victim who received a blackmail is the CEO of Network Box, Michael Gazeley. He commented on the situation, stating:

“This looks like the third wave of blackmail emails plaguing the world in the past few years… I have never seen something like this, which sounds like cyberterrorism, in my 20-year career in cybersecurity.”

In addition, he claimed at first he was shocked, then he noticed that there were some grammar mistakes which helped him to understand that the email was not worth believing. It was quite clear that the main target was individual rather than bombing an office. He did not report to the police of Hong Kong as considers that email not credible.

Charles Mok, the spokesman of the IT sector in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, was abashed by the quality of threats.

He said: “Scammers need to be smarter, they can’t just say in a spam email, ‘You need to pay me or I blow up your office’.”

According to the online platform Coingecko, Bitcoin (BTC) added 0.8% over the past 24 hours. The price at the time of writing is $3266 per coin.

The rest of cryptocurrencies tend to fix in the green zone:Bitcoin Cash added 1.98% over the past 24 hours and costs $81 per coin;Ripple lost 0.03% and is $0.29 in value;EOS grew by 2.62%, and its price is $2.01;Litecoin increased by 6.03%, and its cost is $27;Cardano added 1.47%, and its rate is $0.029;Stellar grew by 0.10% and costs $0.097;IOTA dropped by 1.05%, and its cost is $0.24;Dash lost 1.32%, and its price is $64;Monero became more expensive by 1.21% and costs $41.

Over the past 24 hours, Ethereum added 0.49%. The coin rate is $87, according to Coin 360.

The total market capitalization of $104 billion. The share of Bitcoin is 54.8% of the total volume. In monetary terms, this is $57 billion.